oops. try this

If you are seeing this in an email post and can’t see this video, click on the lower right hand link of your email post (not the one that seems obvious at the bottom of the blog post), and that can take you to the video. Good luck.

Why do an Ayurvedic cleanse in the fall?

Hi All,

I am experimenting with some video stuff. Since I get a little tired of reading words on a computer, I thought maybe you were too and I’d occasionally supplement with a little video. I’m a bit windblown in this one (which is only about a minute and a half), but manage to spit out why it’s good to cleanse in the Fall, in a nutshell. In case you prefer words (or want to supplement the message on the video), here’s a written nutshell:

Pitta (heat) accumulates in our bodies over the course of the summer and then the changeable, cool (read: cold), breezy (read: gale force winds) Vata (air/ether elements) nature of the fall can rise and “blow on” pitta, causing it to flare up. So it is good to purge pitta out of the body and calm vata. Doing a fall Ayurvedic cleanse can assist with this, allow the body to change gears and reset the good digestion button. (Didn’t know you had one?) Enjoy

Pathological Altruism

You know that thing we do, where we overextend ourselves unnecessarily when we don’t have sufficient physical, financial, emotional or spiritual resources? Scientists have now coined a name for this: “Pathological Altruism.”

In today’s New York Times article about this, the incomparable Natalie Angier gives revealing examples: a doctor who pushes for more invasive, aggressive techniques because “there is always hope,” “animal hoarders” (a real term) who amass so many animals that they can’t care for them all and they begin to die, patients of bulimia who are so tuned into others feelings that they sacrifice their own well being.

I grant there are times when over-extension is necessary. I often give this example: I arrive home tired at the end of a long day. I know that what I need is a home-cooked meal, a bath and a soothing evening. But as I am leaving my car, I see my elderly neighbor has fallen, injured himself and can’t get up off the sidewalk. Nobody else is there to bring him to the hospital. What do I do? Take my bath and leave him there? It is not even a question. Of course I bring him to the hospital.

Or maybe I have a chronically sick child, parent, spouse, pet. Or an infant. There are stretches in life that demand a lot.

These situations are the exceptions to the put-on-your-own oxygen-mask-before-helping-your-neighbor-on-a-plane rule. When we make it a habit to prioritize our own well being, we are not sacrificing the well being of others. On the contrary, we are likely to be healthier, kinder, more solid human beings and, fundamentally, isn’t that who we would like to see populate our world?

Sadness lasts longer than happiness, and other recent news

Today I want to share random bits of recent news that I find interesting in one way or another:

• Amniotic fluid is flavored within as little as a half hour of eating, drinking or smoking something. Breast milk is also flavored by what we ingest. Science is finding that we can influence our children’s preferences for foods by what they taste and smell in utero and through breast milk. If we want our children to prefer fast food, then that is what to eat during pregnancy and nursing. Veggies? Then that is what we need to be eating. Early exposure to flavors increases the likelihood (it is not a guarantee) that a child will accept a wider variety of flavors later in life. It generally takes 8 tries before little children like a new food.
• The Journal of Medical Microbiology recently published a study: researchers from the University of Beira Interior in Portugal report that oil extracted from coriander seeds can kill bacteria related to food-borne diseases, like E. coli, salmonella and MRSA, and may one day be used as a food preservative to prevent bacterial contamination. Coriander is widely used in India…hip hip hooray ☺
• Gordon Edlin, author of “Health and Wellness,” writes that, when Israel banned the chlorinated pesticides—which are xenoestrogens (see pp 224-234 in my book, Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life) in the 1970s, rates of breast cancer dropped considerably after being one of the highest in the world.
• Extracts from the British Autumn crocus–already used to treat gout—is exhibiting promising anti-tumor effects. The treatment is derived from the flower. ☺ The active chemical colchicine starves the tumor by destroying the blood vessels that supply it. That’s a picture of a flower I might want to have on my wall.
• In August The March of Dimes began a new campaign to curb the large and increasing number of otherwise healthy pregnancies of single babies that are deliberately ended early by induced labor or Caesarean delivery. This is in response to an alarming American trend in elective early deliveries before 39 weeks of gestation, when fetal development is complete. It is ideal for the baby to be born only at week 40 but, as many as 36 percent of elective deliveries now occur before 39 weeks, contributing to a significant number of premature births and expensive complications. (This is not targeting the need for premature delivery of twins or babies in need of this intervention to save their lives).
• Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found an association between high cortisol levels in mothers during late pregnancy and lower IQs in their children when they reached age 7.
• A new study suggests that sad emotions last longer than happy ones and a pleasant visit or telephone call with patients of Alzheimer’s can have profoundly positive effects, even if the interaction is forgotten very soon.

There. That cleans off my desktop (most of it) for the moment. Hope you all are well.
Love, cw

How Do You Keep Track of 150 Siblings’ Birthdays? (Artificial insemination, Ptolemies and Genghis Khan)

Been so long since my last blog that I’m almost daunted.

Part of that is that there are about eight different blog topics I have knocking around in my head. Guess I’ll just pick one…

How about this: Thinking of a sperm donor?: Ramifications you may not have thought of. Good?

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

As we know, many women in our modern world are choosing to have babies on their own and opting for sperm donors and artificial insemination. So there is a demand for sperm donors. What we may not know, are some of the unusual issues that are starting to arise from this practice. There are not many regulations in place to keep track of all the babies born from one donor, so we are starting to see increasingly large groups of donor siblings. For example, The New York Times recently reported on a woman researching this, and finding 150 half siblings to her child.

While that is one of the larger groups, there are many with around 50 half siblings and often these groups are in the same geographical location.

Naturally, there is concern growing that half siblings could accidentally meet and get together and bear children of their own and, well, pretty soon things would be looking positively Graeco-Roman Egyptian. (Think Ptolemaic Dynasty). (Think Wikipedia). Even without the GRE soap-opera drama, there is a greater risk of genes for rare diseases spreading into the population more rapidly. And there is the question of psychology. What does it feel like to know that you are one of 50 siblings? What are those consequences?

Now, at first glance we may think, “Holy cow. This has never happened before! Whatever will become of us??!!” BUT. Don’t panic. Actually it has happened before. Maybe not with test tubes. But with monarchies.

There have likely been loads of monarchs who fathered, like, a gazillion children, but one in particular comes to mind. My husband and I were just listening to a podcast (can’t remember which one unfortunately). Scientists were finding the same genetic material in individuals all over Eurasia. When they traced it back, they traced it to one man in the 12th century. One man who traveled very extensively. At exactly the time when Ghengis Khan was pillaging. Actually, they think it was Ghengis Khan. He was the father that began genetic lines that to this day are widely found in various communities throughout Eurasia. Scientists studying Y-chromosome data have found that about 8 percent of the men living in the former Mongol empire carry nearly identical y-chromosomes. That’s about .5 percent of the male population OF THE WORLD, or about 16 million descendents we can find living today. Somewhere on the web I found this idea: that Genghis Khan was with so many women that there is a .5 percent chance that you are related to him.

I have no doubt there are consequences to this many-half-siblings phenomenon associated with the practice of artificial insemination, and I bring this up precisely because this is the kind of thing we might do well to consider before deciding on artificial insemination. (I also recommend reading Ch. 12 of my book, Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life. It goes into some other issues associated with Assisted Reproductive Technologies that are worth considering).

I don’t underestimate the gravity of the situation. Though, if I had to chose between artificial insemination and being visited by Genghis K., well, it wouldn’t be much of a choice. The violence associated with the latter is hard to fathom, compounded when we consider the scale we are talking about.

I think it is important to consider the ramifications of our choices, as best we can, and remember that there have been times of great upheaval and weirdness in other historical times as well as our own (think both Ptolemies and Genghis Khan) and, as as we consider this new world in which we find ourselves, we may do well to adopt (rather than inseminate?) a sense of perspective, if not humor and, as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy recommends, “Don’t Panic.”☺

Love Begets Love

Love Begets Love

More Thoughts on Treating Cancer: Western or Eastern Medicine?

There have been some very thoughtful comments on my previous blog entry that inspire me to offer this post script:

One of the real challenges for a patient of cancer or any serious illness is that, at a time when it is most difficult for her to think clearly, it is most important. She may end up researching and deciding weighty things that are often outside her knowledge base and deciding what course to take. And we all know first hand how difficult it is to think clearly even in the face of a headache, let alone a systemic illness.

I really feel for everyone who has to face making treatment decisions in the face of the volume of even accurate, useful information available, let alone inadequate, incomplete information–or sometimes misinformation. Not even (necessarily or usually) because anyone has any malignant intent. Simply because there is so much to know, that it is difficult even for highly trained physicians to readily make sense of it all. It is generally my experience that health care practitioners from both “sides” have the best intentions, and often expertise. It is just usually the case that they each have their own areas of practice and it is left to the patient to coordinate her own treatment plan, again, at a time when it is difficult to think clearly.

We are in such a difficult time in the medical community when it comes to this scenario. God willing this will improve in the years and decades ahead, as Complementary medicine becomes more truly integrated with Western medicine and options are more clear.

I knew a brilliant Colombian surgeon once—who has since passed away—who was very devoted to his guru. I heard that, at the beginning of each day he would look at his hands and say, “Well, Master, what are you going to do with these hands today?” This story has always stayed with me. In my own life when my family or I are facing surgery or treatment, it helps me to find and fix in my faith in the Divine. Human beings, however well intentioned or trained, have limitations and can make mistakes. It is sometimes difficult to place faith in human beings—including myself—faith that they wont make a “mistake,” but if I look at them as vehicles for the Divine, and trust that the Divine is in charge of the outcome, whatever that may be, then I can trust that the outcome, whatever it is, the right thing for me and for my family. Then there is no looking back or regret.

For me, it goes back to this premise that my guru taught: that it is up to us to make the efforts, but the results are in the Hands of the Divine.

I wish everyone well who is facing these sorts of weighty decisions, or is accompanying someone who is. God bless us all.